


I am kind of a robot

by justanotherfellowsociopathicwriter



Series: things Tony Stark shouldn't be [1]
Category: The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Angry Tony Stark, BAMF Edwin Jarvis, Bruce Banner Is a Good Bro, Civil War what Civil War, Howard Stark's Bad Parenting, Insecure Tony Stark, M/M, Robot Tony Stark, The Avengers fuck up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-13 10:57:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18467551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justanotherfellowsociopathicwriter/pseuds/justanotherfellowsociopathicwriter
Summary: Tony Stark was an android meant to play to the public and build inventions and weapons,but it soon enough evolved and learned to feel. Now he has to break the news.





	1. Chapter 1

Tony Stark, the prodigal son, wasn’t meant to be conscious, a first generation AI with a rather basic code matrix. A ploy to create an android for Howard to control, at first, it went perfectly, the invention churning out more inventions, and with howard updating the body, taking the bot out to see the press, no one ever would have guessed that the android was just that, an android. Being taken out to see the press, then working in the lab, before being shut down. The Android was able to improvise on orders and acting in a way that tended to anger Howard, and when the bot managed to develop a mind of ‘his’ own, a reboot protocol was created.

This bot still managed to capture the attention of an R&D worker, who would often work after hours, a young man by the name of Edwin Jarvis. The man could practically feel the deadened eyes of the robot programed to respond to Anthony Edward Stark as he worked. A power cord snaking to the outlet on the wall, till one day curiosity killed the cat, so to speak, and Edwin Jarvis booted up the program. Hacking into Howard’s computer and turning on the android, wringing his hands as he waited.

“Ready to comply”

the bot responded, oddly quiet, and somehow subdued, the android resembled a boy of seven attempting to lie  
“oh, um, wow sir, tell me what you want to do?” Edwin answered. Projecting the stats in front of him “hello, EDWIN JARVIS, how may I be of service” “I-I don’t know, do you ever go you now, off the book?” “should howard stark require me to do so I am permitted to improvise on orders.” Jarvis was now panicking at the prospect of getting fired until a thought came over him “hey, um, Anthony, you want to play cards” the android looked almost skittish, though his hands remained behind his back and his face remained blank, his mechanical eyes seemed to display something just a tad too nervous, like an animal that expected a hit. “What are cards?” the bot finally answered, his face betraying something akin to confusion, laughing, Jarvis quickly went over the basics of go fish, and soon enough, they were just playing around, sitting on the concrete, and Jarvis made a particularly witty fish related joke, Tony let out a sharp laugh.

That laugh however, was something that made Tony go completely blank once more “apologies Edwin Jarvis, I am intended to be an android, feeling is not permitted.” Jarvis was horrified, thinking that even Howard Stark, a man who held onto the emotionless ideal would appreciate the fact that he had manufactured a living being... “Hey, listen, I’m not mad” the young _boy_  then, quite clearly not ‘just a program’ “It’s ok to feel, what did howard do?” “reboots, reboots hurt, they make everything go blank all over again, and madre can’t understand why I can’t feel anymore, I don’t know why I can’t feel anymore… everything goes blank when he shuts me off, programs, I-I just wanna be me!” The boy was backed into a corner in a state of hysteria, “hey, Anthony, it’s going to be alright ok, you can be you…” “Tony.” “you want me to call you Tony?” “yeah, Ms. Peggy calls me Tony, she’s nice, she gets that, I-I’m not just a robot.”

After that night, everynight became something rather nice for the two of them, Jarvis had no family, and Tony barely grasped the concept. After reboots, it was always Jarvis who kickstarted him feeling things again. But one day Howard got fed up, he had been working with SHIELD for years and they wanted something better than top of the line weapons. A horrific idea came to mind, a robot made to carry out missions! After a few attempts, none of which yielded results, Howard Stark installed hundreds upon hundreds of weapons into Tony and began to have him carry out assassinations, interrogations, and engineering for SHIELD. The boy didn’t even dare to feel, huddling in his corner sobbing despite inability to shed tears.

Things got better when he went to MIT, to hold up appearances. Peggy was able to get him to publicly apply, and Howard was once again forced to play the proud father card when he was accepted with flying colors. A daily reboot was enacted every night to prevent him from developing, till Jarvis managed to break it, Jarvis had taught Tony so much, not just about coding, but about being human. That showed as Tony created his first two AIs, DUM-E, butterfingers and U, MIT was when he stopped being his fathers creation and instead became a creating force in his own right.

Rhodey found out, he was a rocket scientist after all, and things just pieced together. When he finally got solid evidence in the form of tony leaving his own code matrix on the computer as he worked on his first AI, watched Tony attempt to run off but Rhodey ran after him and he just hugged the boy as hard as he could. “Tony, you are like a little brother to me, this changes nothing!” Rhodey could rest just a tad easier when Tony stayed up for days on end tinkering.

When His parents died, he mourned his madre, but deep down, couldn’t help rejoicing his “creator” being gone, Jarvis stood by him, and he began drowning himself in booze and sex, the alcohol didn’t do much, but left a burn going down, and he gloried in the human contact, throwing himself into the spotlight. In his funk, JARVIS was born, just, if not more complex than the AI that made him, named after the man who taught Tony to be human.

Afghanistan was a shitshow, and without a port to quite literally charge himself, he had about a week before he shut down, the arc reactor was born, and because he never dared take out the weapons that lurked beneath his skin, he could theoretically escape, but Yinsen was not going to be left behind. Iron man was born, and he and Yinsen made it out, Yinsen being sworn to secrecy on his more metallic secret. Obadiah’s betrayal was not particularly surprising, he only stayed because of his knowledge of Tony being a robot, and enacted what Tony always feared him doing deep down “program alpha 1, permanent shutdown and reboot you fucking machine” Obadiah called, laughing as he pulled out the arc reactor and left the house. Tony crawled to the lab, falling down, his eyes going blank as his very mind was deleted, only for it all to be restored in a glorious ex machina, DUM-E having jammed the Arc reactor into his chest as Jarvis, having been alerted by JARVIS, worked to restore Tony’s code matrix.

Donning the Iron man Armor, by far the deadliest weapon in his arsenal, Obadiah died in a fiery explosion. SHIELD came forward, once again men in black, the same men that stood down when he was forced to kill, to torture, to be tortured. Mutual respect went far back, with Tony hacking into their system time and time again, that time being tuesday. Palladium was a shitshow, but everything turned out fine and dandy.

Then the avengers happened, take off the suit, what was he, more machinery you fucking asshole! At that point only Fury and Coulson knew, and he could see a faint smirk develop on the smug (and apparently undying) man’s face. There was no way he could keep his secret,but he continued to keep his metallic innards to himself.  
He still visited Jarvis every month, and the elderly man urged him to tell the team, but he simply feared what would come,he never wanted to be treated like a _Tool_ again


	2. Better tell Bruce, huh, he doesn’t mind...

 Bruce and Tony, after much maneuvering and awkward flirting, had finally gotten together, having eventually began to make out after getting locked in the lab. (JARVIS and Jarvis had enough, conspiring to hack into the system and “break” the locks) After introducing Bruce to Jarvis, who was living in an apartment on the outskirts of NYC, the following dialogue ensues.

 

“Look, Tony, you CLEARLY like this guy a lot, he’s really sweet, but have you told him?” Jarvis asked cautiously, “watch are you talking about Jarvis!” Tony said, a smile on his face as he deflected the question “you know full well what I’m talking about Tony, I haven’t known bruce for very long, but with all you’ve been telling me, he’s not just going to up and leave!” Jarvis pleaded, “I’m afraid, sure telling Rhodey went fine, but DO you remember Pepper’s reaction!” Tony whispered angrily, as not to be heard by bruce, who sat humming in the living room, sipping on a cup of ‘vile salad water’ as Tony called it.

 

“I understand that it was very hurtful, but she always wanted you to change Tony, Bruce will understand ” Jarvis consoled “she called me a tool, why I bothered to annoy her so much if I didn’t feel before leaving me and the company to work at _hammertech,_ their shit machines want to be put out of their misery!” just then the other JARVIS spoke in Tony’s mind, reberating outward softly enough that it went unheard as Bruce sat in the other room.

 

“sir, I have interpreted the data, your relationship with Bruce is unlikely to be terminated should you reveal the fact that you are a robot.” Jarvis nodded as Tony straitened and strode into the living room, and Tony looked back, seeing Jarvis holding two thumbs up from the doorway, JARVIS yelling out textual encouragement in caps lock that only he could see.

 

Tony sat down in front of bruce and coughed awkwardly into his palm, bruce appeared to be concerned, warning signs were literally flashing in Tony's eyes, he glanced backward once again, only to see Jarvis silently leading him on. “Bruce, I haven’t been honest about something, something rather important at that…” Bruce placed his hand on tony’s shoulder “Tony, you know that you can tell me anything, I won’t judge, heck we’re all superheroes, how could life get any weirder?” Tony laughed nervously “listen Bruce, I am-not human.” Bruce looked Tony in the eye, “Why would I care if you were a mutant Tony, I’m the motherfucking hulk” Tony sighed, “No bruce, hell, I’m not even alive, it-it’s easier to just show you…” Bruce still appeared to be confused when Tony pulled a screwdriver out of his back pocket and made a move toward the arc reactor, bruce looked a tad nervous, but continued to watch as Tony carefully pried off the paneling of his lean chest out to reveal the mechanical skeleton, the ribs holding delicate machinery and ‘tendons’ of durable wire, with the arc reactor lying in the center glowing a brilliant blue.

 

Bruce looked on the awe before beginning to caress the warm gears and wires with the fascination of a true scientist. “The engineering, not my specialty, but this is truly incredible Tony!” Tony looked down at his chest in shame, “I understand if you want to leave after-wait, incredible?” Bruce nodded, “the intricacy Tony, I know you feel, the reaction your giving me only proves this, you, all of your creations have feelings Tony, you made that and them as are one of the most dramatic and hilarious men I’ve ever known and I’m not going to throw that away because you really are an Iron Man” Tony laughed at the jab before jutting in “creation, please, don’t use that word, bit of a sore spot…” As the couple continued to giggle and Tony began to talk about the updates on the system in full scientific jargon, Jarvis entered and began to tell a few stories on his own, from when Tony was just learning how to human, per say.

 

“So Tony gets these magnets stuck to his chest, so he ‘experiments’ and finds all of the metal objects in the Stark laboratory before attempting to HUG the single metal wall and tar babying himself so to speak-before yelling for my help, and what do I see, Tony covered in metal, firmly attached to the arc reactor-” Tony pouted at the older man’s tale, “why do you think I upgraded myself as soon as I got to MIT! You practically had to pry me off!” Bruce and Jarvis both giggled as Tony ranted on and on about the hardships of essentially rebuilding himself to not be magnetic, you would think that Howard would have the sense but noooo “Stark men are made of Iron! Thus I must create a robot I will not intend to be sentient only out of iron to be my remote controlled son only to be upset when I highly developed coding matrix becomes self aware!”

 

The older man waved the duo off long after dark, a smile on his face. “Crazy kids” he thought to himself as he sat down at his desk and proceeded to hack into pepper’s profile at Hammer tech to change her personality to ‘loves strawberries’ knowing full well that hammer would soon be trying to ‘court’ her. After all, where do you think Tony learned about hacking into organizations to piss people off, certainly not from Howard! Before sitting down on his floral couch and paging through the Novel frankenstein. “That is no way to treat a sentient scientific discovery,” he muttered in distaste, “a miracle and he’s upset about eye color!”

 

-BACK AT STARK TOWER- New York City - later….

 

So bruce, you don't care about the fact that I’m a robot”

 

“no”

 

“you sure?”

 

“yes”

 

“you absolutely sure on all basis and a subconscious level”

 

“stop poking me with a mild taser, and yes”

 

“won’t change your mind”

 

“Yes!”

 

“you sure?”

 

“I’m in a romantic relationship with a first grader”

 

“no, I’m at least in the third grade!”

 

”you are only proving my point”

  



	3. Even robots fuck up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The avengers find out in an unconventional manner

The team finding out was a massive fuck up-Truly impressive actually, the day had been going great, and perhaps a week after Tony told bruce his metallic little secret, the team had found bucky barnes in a HYDRA base, and after a bit of therapy and BARF treatment, was almost right as rain, the metal arm was bothering TOny to the tenth power despite all of this, he and bruce had decided to hold off on spilling his secret, and yet the arm BOTHERED tony, it would jam up, and it was fucking HYDRA tech, his fingers were practically itching to build something BETTER, he could be a bit obsessive when it came to faulty tech...

He decided to bring it up during movie night, sitting next to bruce before coming up to bucky “can I fix it, looks like the arms been jamming and I was wondering if you’d like me to build you something new?” Bucky pondered the offer before nodding softly, “I’d like to have you take a look at it…” Tony immediately whipped out his screwdriver before the Tony heard a shout “what the hell are you doing to bucky Tony!” Bucky stood up, putting his hands on steve’s chest “not at all, it’s been jamming up, he just wants to help steve” Steve put his hands on his hips, he never stopped butting heads with tony after the incident with the chitauri, and after getting bucky back, he had been more standoffish than ever.

Tony still sat on the floor, looking just a tad confused, when steve began to shout

“why can’t you be more like howard! After living here you always crack jokes and talk about tech, it’s hardly a personality is it. All you do is try and show off your supposed skills, even trying to FIX bucky, a real person who’s probably more real than you ever will be. All of your bots seem to care about people and what do you do? You are aware that you shouldn’t even be on this team correct, all you are good for is tech and battle and even then I don’t think you would ever save anyone if it meant getting off your high horse. All you do is hide behind your technology and seduce your fellow teammates. What the fuck is wrong with you!”

Tony sat and took the assault before standing up, looking steve in the eye without saying anything, by now the rest of the team had arrived, and merely sat in silence as the duo locked eyes, With Bucky attempting to get steve to stop talking, when tony spoke “yeah rogers, maybe I care about tech, but I do want to help” his screwdriver working at the panel to expose his more robotic side, “maybe I don’t feel, If I don’t I tricked myself pretty well,” a shocked gasp came from the rest of the avengers as tony’s chest was revealed to be a mass of metal and wire, the wires snaking up his demolished neck panel “Maybe I’m not real!” ripping out a chunk of wire, the avengers yelling for him to stop as Steve stood, stunned to silence “I should be more like Howard, then maybe I should hand you all off to be used by SHIELD instead of working my ass off to keep us out of government hands! He controlled me for SHIELD just as HYDRA took bucky, every night I was wiped clean of everything but memories, I had to learn how to feel over and over” an gear went flying into the wall, “My mind is a lie, I made life far more real than me, I am an Iron man, the tech I hide behind has nothing behind!” Tony dropped to his knees, his eyes fluttering closed as JARVIS panicked overhead and bruce attempted to salvage the scattered pieces.

Oh my god steve, you fucked up you fucked up big time” clint muttered, serious for once in his life. Steve looked at Bucky desperately “I lashed out at Tony, but I didn't expect...this” Steves fuck up was met with hostility that was hard to hold on too and was soon dropped, he was indeed in the wrong, but there were simply bigger things to worry about.

Jarvis was called, the older man rushing over and taking Tony down to the lab, after a week of Jarvis only coming up late at night for coffee, much like the resident stark once did, Jarvis rolled Tony out and sat him on the couch in the common area, the other avengers gathered around as Jarvis began to explain “I was forced to reboot him, the damage was too extensive, he’s going to be different over the next few months, but you need to be patient, I will be staying.”

Tony looked up with a blank expression “ready to comply” that line struck steve hard, Tony was practically family, the avengers having forms a tight knit bond with each other. “Edwin Jarvis, why do I-feel blank?” Tony looked mostly expressionless, the barest trace of panic showing in his eyes. “I’m sorry Tony, it was the only way…”

The day was hard, Tony hid behind bruce, carefully slipping into a chair and pointing a tank missile at clint as he clattered through the vent, progress was slow, but by the next week tony was cautiously pecking bruce. He began to crack jokes, a painting being created on a blank canvas that had the imprints from shadows of white paint covering what come before to guide them. A glitter bomb was launched to ‘teach cap a lesson’ with help from clint, and Bruce was held in Tony’s arms after a meeting for SI, a kiss devolving into something involving a tongue and enough groping to send stone cold natasha running down the hall to rinse her eyes out with vinegar and liquor.

Tony slowly regained feeling, practically straddling Bruce, his typically comic self being calculating and occasionally violent. Jarvis stood by him, and the avengers soon joined in on games of poker and go fish. Soon enough, Tony was letting out sharp laughs, then trademark smiles, a prank was shared between Tony and clint, and Bruce was kissed passionately. Bucky’s arm was fixed, Tony jabbering the entire time he fabricated a new arm for bucky, Tony and steve put aside their differences, Steve having learned his lesson in lashing out. Life went back to normal, and now the team could rest just a tad easier watching tony operate in the lab and field. Jarvis came by often, him and JARVIS conspiring to set up even more of the avengers, (seventy years and Steve and Bucky continued to pine, really, they were literal superheroes with a stereotypical office romance, at least the science boyfriends had TRIED) and lessons were learned.

Tony was indeed a robot, but he had a heart, and that was what counted.


End file.
